The last few years I’ve been doing huge lists of anticipated stuff for the coming year, but in the end that just basically turns into a preview of everything that’s coming out next year… and not so much an insight into what I, personally, am looking forward to. So this year I decided to take a different approach… and limit myself to 6.

This list will contain the 6 biggest releases from my perspective for the coming year. Sit back, relax, and enjoy my Most Anticipated of 2016!

This year has been good for anime… and while we’re not quite ready to talk about the best of summer and fall… we are ready to talk about the best opening scenes. Why are we talking openings? Because this year had some of the best I’ve seen and deserves recognition for that!

Apparently I completely missed it becoming October. That shows something, but I’m not quite sure what! So let’s get some info about what is to happen this month, and what’s happened last month.

October has Hallowe’en, the first games to come that I’m actually likely to buy in a while, the start of a really busy time in many ways, and the end of the summer anime season. September started a bit slow, but has rounded out to be really fast. This month I finished an amazing JRPG that I sadly missed last year, Fairy Fencer F, I’ve started my summer reviews with School-Live! and Classroom Crisis over the past week, and a Shadow’s Six list focused on the adorable characters that have stolen my heart over the past year and a half.

This is the start of what is likely to be a very busy month, with Hallowe’en, an anime season’s end, new game releases, and a convention…

So I may be a 30-year-old dude, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love cute things. Hell, my wife and I have a collection of adorable stuffed animals and I frequently buy artwork at Ai-Kon solely based off of how adorable it is. So, when I started thinking about the past year and a half of anime and games, it occurred to me that part of what I liked so much about these shows and games were the quality of the Cutes. Cutes of all varieties… from those that just make you smile, to the creepy ones that leave you wondering what might be wrong with them… Cutes that kick ass, and Cutes that just beg to be protected. And it is the Cutes that inevitably make you cry – either at their successes or at their trials.

So here, today, we’re going to help break down my favourites from among them and what makes them special. If your favourite Cute didn’t make the list, I’m sorry – there were just too many, the list was originally more than twice as long as this. Feel free to share your favourite Cutes in the comments!

We’re a few days into September, and its time to take a look at August and then look forward into September. The summer lull is finally beginning to come to a close, the summer anime season is well underway, and Winnipeg has had the craziest summer weather I have seen in my 30 years here… it’s been a strange month and a stranger summer, but things are getting back to normal.